I.J.NEWS SERVICESANTA ANA, CA — A Southern California taxi driver was detained on May 8 by U.S. immigration authorities during a check-in for an 18-year-old deportation order. Gurmukh Singh, a 47-year-old husband and father of two teenage girls, was detained at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s offices here. The 46-year-old Sikh...

taxi driver from Punjab sneaked into the United States without a visa through the border with Mexico in 1998. In a bid to get his papers, he claimed religious persecution and applied for asylum. But his case was rejected and he was ordered deported. Singh married a US citizen in 2010 but his deportation case resurfaced when he applied for a residency visa in 2012 given his new status.He was subsequently jailed for about five months but after rights activists posted his bail, he was released and his case has since been going through the appeals process. His family said in the past several years, he had been checking in with the office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on a regular basis pending the outcome of his appeals against the deportation order.This isn’t the first time Singh has been detained by immigration authorities. In 2013, he was arrested upon attending an interview for an application for a green card that was filed by his U.S. citizen wife — which, his lawyers say, was when he first learned about the old deportation order.Since then, Singh had sought to get the 1999 order reviewed but the courts last month rejected his efforts.Democratic Rep. Alan Lowethal sponsored a private immigration bill recently in an attempt to help Singh fix his immigration status, and Singh’s lawyers said they filed a request to put his deportation on hold.“They told me that under President Trump’s executive actions, Mr. Singh’s case is now a priority,” his lawyer Monica Eav Glicken said. The latest twist in Singh’s lengthy case comes as President Donald Trump’s administration has stepped up efforts to tighten immigration enforcement by building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and boosting deportations.Immigration authorities said in a statement that Singh’s case has received “exhaustive review” by the U.S. courts, which have repeatedly upheld the 1999 order. In addition, authorities said anyone who breaks U.S. immigration laws and has a deportation order could potentially be removed from the country. “We’re a nation of immigrants, but we’re also a nation of laws,” ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice said. Singh, who lives in Garden Grove, said he wants the U.S. to let him stay in the country while filing paperwork toward getting his green card, and that he would travel to India to complete the process so he could return and remain here with his family. He told reporters before his check-in that he was afraid of what would happen to his wife, who suffers diabetes, and his daughters, one who is soon headed to college, if he were taken into custody.“If I am deported what happens to my family?” he said. “I love my family too much.”